


Part 3: Warning

by SesameiBun



Series: Requiem of the Promised [3]
Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, F/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-10
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24117850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SesameiBun/pseuds/SesameiBun
Summary: "The pain in Lauren's heart swelled into her throat. The guilt crushed her chest like a stone weight, splintering her bones and suffocating her lungs..."
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White
Series: Requiem of the Promised [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740154
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	Part 3: Warning

Sunlight washed onto Lauren's face, coaxing her awake. The light tread carefully over her skin, but she could not feel its warmth. The soft touch of daisy petals brushed her forehead, but she could not smell their scent. A laughing voice enveloped her ears, but she could not respond. And suddenly, the presence of such comfort that she could never feel pushed tears to her eyes.

"I'm tired," Lauren choked. "I'm tired, Dylan." Kind, sad eyes peered into hers. Dylan smiled.

"I know. It's okay." He stroked her cheek. "You've done enough."

The pain in Lauren's heart swelled into her throat. The guilt crushed her chest like a stone weight, splintering her bones and suffocating her lungs.

"You promised me you'd become a police officer to help people." Dylan smoothed her hair away from her forehead. Realizing she could not feel the warmth of his touch, he smiled regretfully.

"My greatest wish was for you to be happy."

Tears of immense pain welled in Lauren's eyes and the sunlight began to wane.

"I want you to live," Dylan murmured, a little desperate now. A wind picked up, blowing Lauren's daisy crown away.

Dylan touched his forehead to hers. Silvery eyes stared into gold.

"We can rest now," he smiled, tears rising to his wistful eyes.

Whether Lauren's vision blurred with tears or awakening, she did not know.

"Please," his voice fading. 

"Before you lose anybody else."

A gasp tore through Lauren's lungs, jolting her from the dream. The stinging cold of the empty room gave way to an avalanche of panic. Visions of blood, shadowy figures, and Kieran's dark form shifting in and out of focus tore through Lauren's mind, one after another, like falling photographs. Heart racing, she wrenched herself upright and almost screamed in pain. The deep wounds on her stomach began to spill dark red through the bandages and high pitched buzzing screamed in her ears.

"Kieran—" Lauren cried out, choking back the metallic taste of blood.

Eerie silence and whisperings of dread answered her call, and an icy finger traced down Lauren's spine. Frigid fire engulfed her brain, and suddenly her terrified scream caught in her throat. The warmth, which she had unknowingly fostered close to her heart, had suddenly evaporated like the grey ashes of a dying fire, and she hadn't even woken up to snatch it back. The warmth, which distilled gently in his forlorn eyes, had slipped out of her grasp without a sound. How long had she been lying in this cold snow, asleep and dreaming? How much time had she lost, and where was he? For the love of God, if his sword was gone—

It was. Panic hitched Lauren's breath, and her lungs jerked with sharp pains as she stumbled wildly, dripping blood onto the floor. She stared at the bloodstains dotting the carpet.

_ What a moron, you'll need stitches. _

Lauren's blood ran cold. The warehouse, she thought. I must go back to the warehouse. He'll die—

Lauren froze, and suddenly the magnitude of the situation dawned and crushed her with its unexpected weight. His fingertips, which had grazed hers an hour earlier, now drenched in his own blood. His voice, which reassured her as he dressed her wounds, now struggling to escape for the last time. These thoughts, which seemed too real to dismiss as imagination, fled past her vision as she raced out the door, revolver in hand. The heavy oak door hesitated as it closed, but Lauren was already long gone.

\-----

The Apostle's weapon of choice was a fitting one: a curved, gleaming crescent of steel fixed upon a skeletal black staff of ebony and iron. Descending soundlessly like a black angel of death, the Apostle had nearly decapitated the Phantom Scythe's most skilled assassin in one strike.

Kieran's body stiffened with anticipation. His nerves jumped like shocks along a wire, electrifying his body into hyper-awareness. His abdominal muscles contracted and twisted, squeezing Belladonna's knife to clot the bleeding.

The Apostle prowled in a slow circle around the injured assassin, surveying his wounds and victims with ravenous eyes. Kieran, not backing down, shifted his weight and locked all senses onto this one man. 

Under normal circumstances, even with the loss of blood, Kieran could have ended this fight quickly, but something was wrong. He could not seem to shake off the abnormally loud thumping of his heart, the whining buzz in his ears, and the sudden weight in his lungs…

Before Kieran even saw the Apostle move, his eyes clouded over like ink spilling onto paper and a lurching pain ripped through his ribcage. Fiery thorns of embers and ice constricted his lungs and spasms jerked his muscles into knots. 

Apostle VII's scythe shrieked through the air and materialized inches from Kieran's jawbone. He barely had time to parry before the tip pierced his cheek and drew first blood. Locking his grip on his blade, his body, conditioned with the reflexes of a warrior, pivoted into a crouch and swept the Apostle's feet, cracking into his ankles and sending him sprawling backwards.

His legs tensed for the finishing blow and lunged before a spray of blood erupted from his lips. Coughing and gasping, he staggered backwards and cupped his hand to his mouth. The blood tasted warm and metallic and... bitter?

The understanding registered in both Kieran's and the Apostle's eyes as the butt of his scythe bludgeoned into Kieran's diaphragm, sending him stumbling into the pillar. Belladonna's dagger dislodged from Kieran's wound with a squelching snap and clattered to the ground. The corinthian engravings on the hilt of the blade gleamed vindictively.

"Poison," the Apostle leered, breath panting, "is now coursing through your veins. Although not nearly as deadly as the Golden Viper, this Stygian Sleep will do the trick."

His face twisted into a neurotic sneer. "The snake really made my job easy this time."

Kieran glared up at the Apostle through his messy bangs, livid eyes of glacial blue spitting cold fire. Blood dripped from his chin and prickling thorns strangled his lungs, but fury outstripped all of the poison's effects. In a flash of shadows, the fight to the death had begun.

Steel bit into steel, the teeth of ravenous monsters tearing into one another in a shower of sparks. Every step sent a bolt of lightning through Kieran's body, every swing of his sword, every dodge, felt closer and closer to death. Even though he was holding his ground, slicing through the Apostle's robes and unraveling his onslaught of attacks, Kieran could already feel the swimming darkness nibbling at the edges of his vision.

Kieran snarled, blood pounding as the deadly dance of silver tongues sliced through the air in a whirl of motion. The Apostle was always an inch out of reach, just one step ahead, a shadow he could chase but never capture. His vision spun in a whirlwind of blades and blood, spiraling through the haziness of the night.

As Kieran felt the poison sink deeper and deeper into his body, his desperation grew. Lauren's teasing voice echoed through his mind.

_ Tired already, subordinate? _

He stomped his foot into the muddy red ground, planting his weight as he thrust his sword forward, reaching. All his force condensed into one blow, before a streak of copper tresses snatched his gaze through the shattered window.

His heart dropped.  _ Did she _ — _? _

"I wouldn't worry about her if I were you."

A split second was all it took. The Apostle spun, materializing at Kieran's shoulder and twisting his wrist against the grip of his scythe, sending the sword snapping out of numbed fingers. A flying kick sent him colliding with the pillar, slamming his head against the stone with a sickening crack. 

The scream of two blades slicing through the air, exploding into the night in a shower of blood.

Kieran, pinned against the wall by the scythe impaling his gut, blood gurgling out of the torn flesh.

The Apostle, stiff with shock and pain, stood inches away, a long knife embedded deeply into his ribcage.

He froze, dumbfounded and drenched in his own gore, and eyes the color of the storming sea and seething with untamed anger burned into his own.

" **Not bad** ," the Apostle growled, flicking his wrist, "for a man half dead."

Kieran's deadened body could do nothing to stop the venomous hiss of Belladonna's fallen serpent blade striking for the final kill. He closed his eyes, waiting as time stood still.

Visions, against his will, flashed through his mind.

A whip of auburn hair and steely words coated with burning hatred.

Light from the lamps jumping across her gloved hands. A smirk, lazily hidden, behind an indifferent shoulder.

Cold. Blood carving around her golden eyes, the scratch of gauze against her skin.

The feel of her throat in his hands.

But still, a begrudging silence, and her voice.

_ Thank you, Kieran. _

  
  


"Don't you dare." The voice of polished steel, which had only echoed in his memories until now, pierced the air with deadly clarity.

The deafening firing of a gunshot shook the building.

Whether the geyser of blood that followed was his or the Apostle's, Kieran did not know. He only dropped soundlessly to the ground, a feather drenched with the weight of his own blood.

His eyes, despite the coldness of death, laid transfixed upon the figure cloaked in the darkness of his fading consciousness. The gloved hand was still stretched out, revolver smoking with pinpoint accuracy.

All was still but for the flaring eyes of polished gold, gleaming in the dark like the midnight sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Cliffhanger whoa


End file.
